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Talk:All About : Kristoff/@comment-108.39.98.157-20171008174927
A very well thought out response! I actually don't think anything you've said here is wrong- however, I do think that it highlights that the act of concision through video making means I still have rebuttals on a number of points (I re-wrote this video many times to try and get my points across without wasting time, and a lot of what you've covered there turned up in my original draft, when I went into hilariously close specifics.) 1- While the fractals argument is an interesting one, because that's totally there and it's done very well- it's just not well integrated enough into the movie to really be appreciated, and the rest of the work isn't as well concieved. Finland's realism is still punctuated by a very distinct feel, present even in other animated adaptations of the snow queen, which was begging to be taken in a direction other than typical european fantasy (in fact, in the original tale, the typical castles, princes and such are all non-existent). Disney's films were often mocked for working by a standard house style that they gradually attempted to kick. Past movies achieved greater artistic progression which continues to influence animators and artists to this day ( Gerald Scarfe completely changed the way character stylisation had worked at Disney, and would be followed by the likes of Chris Sanders on Lilo and Stitch.) With Frozen, you can tell that it sadly doesn't go that far. There's nothing really to the actual stylisation of the human form or even the contrast in the cast roster. I remember watching tangled and then seeing the line drawings in the credits- and all of my friends went 'hey, why couldn't they have looked like that?'. As many recent cgi films have proven, they absolutely could look like that- just last year, Wreck it Ralph got far closer to that effect. Gennedy Tartokovsky changed CGI animation itself through the movement in Hotel Transylvania (not a great film, but if you haven't seen the way those guys animate, you should take a look.) The movement in cloudy with a chance of meatballs is another good example. 2- You're right about the comparison, and I should have expressed it better. The point I was making was that it was, however, actually evident within those works at all- characters were more natural and dialogue really was kind of groundbreaking for children's films, more fitting of the monikers of 'classics' or 'masterpieces' in some cases. In Frozen most of the dialogue could be pieced together from just about any other animated film and the subtext is made far too pronounced in the same way as a bad actor might do so. Mulan was actually incredibly witty- there's a lot of seriously subtle nuances that really capture the way men and women interact with each other based on gender. Before the song 'make a man out of you', check Shang giving 'Ping' a quick confused once over as 'he' arches his back in pain. It's such a little thing, but it gets a massive laugh and humanises Shang in the same breath. None of that 'show, don't tell' stuff seems to fly with Frozen, and I personally believe that a lot of that also had to do with how convoluted its premise was. 3- I knew someone would try and pick me up on this- So the first part deals with the playing field of social justice and the idea that people support tropes over execution. Then I play on that level to see if it even works there- and I find that it's actually more typical than most Disney films have been for a long time. The context they do have is incredibly thin- the communal number, for example. Why did we need Fixer upper? Nothing happens of any concequence and nothing funny or insightful is said to either progress the story or learn more about our two characters. That and the music is particularly grating. Had I an image of the faces of my fellow animators as we watched, I would put it right here. I've already mentioned here that in the original tale, Gerda saves her best friend, a young boy, from the snow queen. I feel that tales basis is certainly already far more subversive and interesting than what we ultimately got, which felt needlessly manufactured as a plot. 4- My issue is that A. I've seen this done to a fantastic degree before, and not on a more complex level and B. it's not particularly well expressed. The Olaf link you've given feels incredibly tenuous and Elsa's arc lacks any interest or drama beyond stating the superficial information we are given. You never feel that she's finally unleashed any kind of insurmountable obstacle to our heroes, only that she's having a quiet little internal struggle (which is never resolved with any real bite) while she deals with incredibly obvious metaphors for her emotions. That's just not very compelling, and it's the kind of thing I expect from Adolescents, not adults. I agree that the understanding love theme is there, but again, it's done with a very heavy hand and it's not very interesting (love is an open door becomes exactly what the film argues against- even with the later twist, the song itself remains utterly unengaging for the same reasons people felt that the original archetype it pulls from is unengaging) . I think a lot of people get the message it's giving, but I don't think it needed it's own story. Enchanted does this better- it makes a few jokes about it but leaves it in the background. The audience gets it, we don't need it to waste time with it, and ultimately the decisions the characters come to through their interactions feels perfectly fine. It's a little smarter, registers with kids as much as adults. (though that film also has it's own problems.) 5- I feel you expressed my issues already. While the songs are paced differently from moment to moment, the lyrics maintain the same stilted nature throughout and nothing feels tied down enough to specific characters that you couldn't offer them up to another film (Tangled has similar issues). I'm not asking for more complex, i'm asking for more suitable to the construct which Disney, once upon a time, was very good at. Are the songs in Frozen repellant? No. Are they anything special? Definitely not. The choice of a conventional style simply reminds me how much better it was when Alan Menken pulled the same lazy tricks in the score for Tangled (and because it was written by people with talent, those songs were entertaining regardless of their lazy typicalities.) Plus, while you specify that the songs have a style to them, they don't go anywhere. Asides Anna's opening song, we remain at the same point from A to B. Flashback to the opening of Beauty and the Beast, which introduces the lead, her personality, the town and her scenario, the conflict, and the tone of the musical in general. That's pretty masterful in comparison to Frozen's very bumpy opening. Naturally the music itself is always going to be completely subjective, but I truly feel that nothing in Frozen's score comes close to anything produced by Disney before. And to address the pop is bad aspect- that's not my argument either. My argument is that the music must invest into the form. Pop music can totally do that- the Jukebox musical 'our house' takes the songs of madness and marries it perfectly to Tim Firth's script and characters. Hairspray managed to balance modern pop with fifties stylings and deliver some incredibly indulgent and overly long pieces without actually feeling indulgent- unlike Frozen it really builds with its music through the story so that those indulgent bits feel truly earnt. It never felt earnt enough in Frozen, for many of the reasons I've already expressed. Also, the music never feels outright copy/pasted in the same way Frozen's does. I've already made my point on Let it go/defying Gravity. That point still stands. I really went into Frozen wanting to like it. The sad truth is, I didn't even despise it. To me it commits the biggest crime by being less entertaining than terrible- being mediocre. I really don't think there is much credit to give it at all- and I'm going to either need some incredibly strong evidence, or be told that actually the movie I saw was the wrong one. However, even though I think it's pretty obvious we're going to disagree (I don't even know if you want to put forward another long rebuttal to my rebuttal), don't think your comment has gone in vain and isn't being thought about further from this comment. I think the way I expressed myself in the video could have covered more of your points and hopefully I can improve upon that in the future. I have no problem if you like the film, and you've already told me that my video gave you some food for thought. That's fine by me.